Sakurai Explains How Sora Got Into Smash
With Smash Brothers completing its second DLC pack, the final character was a massive surprise and a perfect fit for the final fighter, being none other than Sora from Kingdom Hearts. Players didn’t expect the character due to the massive licensing from Disney, but somehow, Nintendo and Sakurai made it work in the game.
Now, with Sora joining Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Sakurai done with the game, he’s taken to his Famitsu column to spill the details on how he managed to get one of the most unlikely characters into the game.
The Famitsu Column
The column was translated and posted onto Twitter thanks to two users. Both @PushDustIn and @KodyNOKOLO teamed up to translate the final Smash Brothers Column after the release of Sora, with their translation and synopsis of the article being published onto Twitter.
This is the summary of Sakurai's Column 639, “The Final One”. Sakurai discusses Sora’s inclusion in Smash Ultimate. @KodyNOKOLO is joining me with this translation and will be posting the second half. Please make sure to follow both of us for the full details! pic.twitter.com/GyBRbKOvUf
— PushSusIn (@PushDustIn) October 20, 2021
Sakurai begins the column for the players talking about how the reaction of Sora being added to smash was massive. He also mentions that Sora was the #1 fighter on the Fighter Ballot from Super Smash Brothers for Wii U and Ultimate. He also mentions that Banjo Kazooie was up there in the numbers as well, despite them being a western IP.
He continues in the column to talk about the barriers to getting Sora into the game wasn’t surprising, seeing that he knew how linked the character was to Disney. Getting Sora into the game wasn’t going to be like any other fighter. Even though players wanted Sora in the game Sakurai thought that Sora would be an unlikely character to be added, getting together with Square and Disney was going to be a tough ask, and something that he didn’t think was possible.
However, something special happened, and helped Sakurai get his foot in the door. While Sakurai was at a certain awards venue, he was able to get in touch with a representative for Disney. Using this opportunity Sakurai started speaking with the representative, and after mentioning that Sora would be a good fit for Smash, the representative agreed. However, this single meeting alone wasn’t going to seal the deal. Sakurai was afraid that talks would fall through if the higher-ups weren’t interested in adding the character.
With Fighter Pass 2 only having five characters like the first pass, Sakurai entered talks with Square, Disney, and Nintendo. After what seemed like the longest time of careful discussions with the companies, the ok was given and Sakurai added the sixth character to Fighter Pass 2. According to him, there were a lot of guidelines for the character, and plenty of hurdles to overcome. Sakurai is quoted as saying “the first Sora model that the Smash team sent to Disney / SE was very quality and there weren’t a lot of issues…just kidding. It was quite difficult.”<br><br>However, these obstacles were overcome by the developers and the members of the Smash team, even though the team shrunk and the development was stunted due to the impact of Covid-19. However, with all of this completed, Sora was eventually added to Smash.
It’s incredible to hear that a single chance encounter with eh right person would be the catalyst for adding the most requested character in Smash Brothers. Even though some players weren’t expecting Sora to be added due to his ties to Disney, Nintendo and Sakurai managed to pull through with the addition, and players around the world got the best character to cap off the Smash Brothers Ultimate.
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